Communication systems, such as wireless communication systems, commonly include radio frequency controllers (RFCs), each of which transmits messages to receiving devices located in a transmission zone, i.e., a geographic area, associated with an RFC. RFCs that are associated with transmission zones that overlap or in which interference from other zones could result often share one or more communication media. For example, when two zones overlap, the RFCs associated with the overlapping zones could share a base station located in the overlapping region. Different RFCs could also share a communication channel, e.g., a communication frequency. In sharing situations, a first RFC transmits using the shared medium, e.g., channel or base station, while a second RFC refrains from transmission using the shared medium. Once the first RFC has completed its use of the shared medium, the second RFC can begin transmissions over the medium.
Typically, a communication medium is shared according to a default sharing pattern. The sharing pattern could, for instance, specify frames of a signal or times of day that are assigned to the different sharing RFCs. However, this method of sharing a communication medium is inefficient because, during any assigned time, the RFC to which the medium is currently assigned may have no need for transmission services. At the same time, other RFCs awaiting availability of the medium may be fairly busy but have no way to transmit messages.
Thus, what is needed is a more effective way of managing shared media in a communication system.